JK 

£357 ■" ' ,W 



&4 




ADDRESS 



OF 



Senator Philander Chase Knox 



PITTSBURGH, PA., 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30th, 1908 




r.i;.ss TK^sy 

Book Xk 

PRESENTED BY 



ADDRESS 



OF 



Senator Philander Chase Knox 



AT 



PITTSBURGH, PA., 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30th, 1908. 



/ 



-^ A> 



&* N V 



10 Nr'O 



My Fellow Citizens: 

/^\NCE more the American people are 
^^^ called upon to review their affairs 
and condition and determine who shall be 
their chief servants, and the policies under 
which their Government is to be admin- 
istered during the next four years. 

The political parties have presented 
platforms of principles, and candidates who 
are pledged, if elected, to administer the 
affairs of the Government in conformity 
thereto, and the people are now engaged 
in the important business of considering 
which party they shall choose. 

It is indeed an important business and 
when decided will either advance or retard 
our progress, for it is impossible that so 



momentous a thing as the continuance or 
reversal of the fiscal, economic, foreign 
and domestic policies of this Government 
should have a neutral effect. 

The parties stand in very different atti- 
tudes towards the contest. 

The Republican Party having adminis- 
tered the affairs of the Government almost 
continuously for nearly a half century, must 
be judged by its performances of the past 
and its promises for the future. Its pros- 
pects of success depend upon the people's 
satisfaction with that past and belief in the 
party's intention and ability to continue 
to administer public affairs wisely and 
honestly. 

It is not my purpose to discuss the 
past of the Republican Party. Its fifty 
years of glorious achievement marks it un- 
equaled in history as a party of high ideals 
and great accomplishments. Its principles 



have been sound and its performances have 
abundantly justified the confidence the peo- 
ple have given it. During the greater 
period of its existence it has been the 
party of the majority of the American 
people, and the progress we have made 
as a people has been under its guidance 
of national affairs. 

Against the proposition of the Repub- 
lican Party, with its record of patriotism 
and progress, that William H. Taft be 
accepted by the country for what he is, 
what he has done and what he stands for, 
there is opposed the Democratic Party, 
with its usual platform of uncertainty and 
abuse, its record of opposition to every- 
thing that has materially advanced the 
national welfare during the last fifty years, 
and a candidate of singular conceptions, 
who petulantly declaims against everything 
that has been done for the country through 



Republican initiative and Republican per- 
formance, and proposes a series of non- 
descript vagaries wholly impractical and 
destructive. 

The achievements of the Republican 
Party during the past few years in con- 
structive constitutional legislation and in the 
application of existing laws to conditions 
affecting materially and beneficially the 
farmer, the laborer, the manufacturer, the 
shipper and the public at large is unsur- 
passed during [any equal period of our 
country's history. 

For labor, the eight hour law has been 
enacted, which applies to all laborers and 
mechanics employed by the Government of 
the United States or the District of Col- 
umbia, or by any contractor or sub-con- 
tractor upon any of our public works; 
an employers' liability act has been passed 
making railroads engaged in interstate com- 

6 



merce liable for personal injuries to their 
employees. 

Congress has also re-enacted the Chinese 
exclusion laws in the interest of the pro- 
tection of American labor. 

During the present administration de- 
cisions have been obtained from the 
Supreme Court of the United States placing 
a broad and liberal construction upon the 
safety appliance law, so that in the future 
it will be difficult, if not impossible for 
railroad companies to evade its beneficent 
provisions; the practice which during recent 
years has grown up in many of the South- 
ern States of holding both white and 
colored people to involuntary servitude on 
the pretext of working out a debt, which 
practice is commonly known as peonage, 
has been rendered obnoxious by reason 
of scores of prosecutions which have 
been instituted before the Federal courts. 

7 



A decision has also been obtained from 
the Supreme Court of the United States 
sustaining the constitutionality of the law 
directed against peonage. 

Already the Safety Appliance Act has 
resulted in the saving of thousands of lives 
in spite of the remarkable development of 
the railroad business in this country. For 
instance, in 1905 one passenger was killed 
for every 1,375,856 carried, while in 1906, 
2,227,041, almost twice as many, passen- 
gers were carried for every one killed. 

I am informed by the Secretary of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission that if the 
accidents due to coupling and uncoupling 
cars had increased in the same ratio as the 
number of men employed have increased 
since 1893, in the year 1907 there would 
have been 548 men killed and 1 5,485 
injured instead of 272 killed and 4,062 
injured; or a total killed and injured of 

8 



16,033 men as against 4,334 actually 
killed and injured in 1907 in this hazard- 
ous occupation. This is the best evidence 
of the good effect of this law. 

Another law along these lines was 
enacted limiting the hours of labor for rail- 
road employees in train service upon rail- 
roads engaged in Interstate Commerce. 

Congress also passed a liability law 
which applies to the Government itself, 
where the Government is an employer of 
labor, and a child labor law applying to 
the District of Columbia and the Terri- 
tories, which is as far as the jurisdiction 
of Congress extends in this matter. 

Another Act of far reaching importance 
which was passed at the last session of 
Congress provides for a complete investi- 
gation of the causes of disasters in the 
mines of this country, especially the coal 
mines. 

9 



Already there is in the City of Pitts- 
burgh an experimental station devoted to 
finding the causes of explosions in coal 
mines. It is the purpose of the United 
States Government to tell the miner and 
the mine owner which explosives are safe 
to use and which are not and to furnish 
him such other information as will be of 
service to him and will lessen the danger 
of disaster. 

Although this testing station has been in 
operation but a short time, this year will 
undoubtedly show a decrease in the number 
of deaths in the coal mines, estimated at 
800 or possibly 1 000 below last year. 

These are only a few of the import- 
ant things which have been accomplished 
directly improving the conditions of the 
laboring classes throughout the country. 

Many laws have been enacted for the 
benefit of the farmer, among which is the 

10 



law laying a tax, which is practically pro- 
hibitive, upon oleomargarine, which may be 
sold in imitation of butter. This law after 
protracted litigation has been declared con- 
stitutional by the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

The general business interests of the 
country have been immeasurably benefited 
by a realization of the policy of this 
administration that the highways of com- 
merce should be open to all upon equal 
terms without reference to the amount of 
transportation which one should have at 
his command. The nefarious practice of 
rebating has been stopped and this result 
has been accomplished through the wise 
laws which have been enacted and the 
vigorous manner in which they have been 
enforced. 

These things I have mentioned, vitally 

affect the individual citizen, but there have 

11 



been other notable achievements affecting 
the country as a whole which might be 
mentioned, such as the acquisition of the 
property of the Panama Canal and the 
procurement of authority to construct the 
canal; the enactment of a law to bring to 
a speedy hearing cases of public import- 
ance respecting interstate commerce; the 
power of the Interstate Commerce Com- 
mission to investigate fully and fairly the 
conditions of interstate transportation and all 
matters connected therewith; the right of 
the immigration officers of the United States 
under the authority of Congress to detain 
and deport summarily alien anarchists seek- 
ing entrance into the United States; the 
efficiency of the postal system upholding 
the power of the Postmaster-General to 
exclude from the mail matters relating to 
fraudulent schemes and lotteries; the fraud- 
ulent acquisition of public lands and the 

12 



unlawful cutting of timber therefrom, have 
been investigated and prosecuted with 
marked success, and salutary laws, enacted 
to protect the public against the aggressions 
of organized wealth, have been enforced 
with unsparing effort and fearless vigilance. 

The legislative will respecting these 
weighty matters has been made effective 
as never before, and the Government in 
Republican hands has shown itself the 
master of the most powerful combina- 
tions. 

There has been carried to successful 
issue in the courts the most notable con- 
tests of modern times, and thereby there 
has been secured a vindication of popular 
rights which will prove of immense and 
permanent value to the people. 

These achievements are unique in char- 
acter and results, and may be recorded 
with pride and remembered with gratitude. 

13 



It is essential to the continued progress 
of the American people that the great 
economic policies of government should be 
stable. 

The energy of the people when oper- 
ating under settled conditions produces 
amazing results. Prosperity and progress 
can go hand in hand with rational, con- 
sistent, harmonious and cumulative evolu- 
tion of governmental policies to meet new 
conditions and to elevate the ethical stand- 
ards of the old ones. 

Under stable conditions the highest 
degree of economic efficiency is attained, 
communities grow richer and stronger, indi- 
vidual effort is stimulated and industry and 
talent are suitably rewarded. 

The people of the United States who 
are most interested in the stability of 
governmental policies and who are entitled 
to the greatest consideration in formulating 

14 



them — the people whose average intelli- 
gence, fairness, and patriotism create the 
national character — are the people who 
work. Upon them the ultimate burden rests 
of maintaining the State, and to them the 
ultimate appeal must be made in all mat- 
ters of radical consequence affecting the 
State. To them I desire to speak to-night, 
and it is most gratifying to know that 
measures of national importance may be 
discussed frankly and openly before the 
people and that all sides are accorded fair 
and respectful hearing. The people who 
work constitute the very great majority of 
all the people, and this is especially true 
in this great hive of industry. They work 
upon the farm, in the factory, in the mines, 
in the offices, in the shops, in all the 
occupations of life. A very large number 
of them, owing to the conditions under 
which they are required to work, have 

15 



found it necessary for their protection and 
advancement to form organizations. In this 
they are cordially supported by those 
workers not under a similar necessity. 

I do not know to what extent Mr. 
Gompers represents the organized labor of 
the United States or by what authority 
he pretends to deliver its votes to the 
Democratic Party, but we all know that 
he appeared at the National Conventions 
of both parties and formulated demands 
upon both in the name of organized labor, 
and as the result of his views of the 
action of the two parties he has called 
upon organized labor to repudiate Mr. 
Taft and vote for Mr. Bryan. 

In the American Federationist for 
October, Mr. Gompers proclaims to the 
country that "in this campaign labor real- 
izes that the Republican Party and its 
candidate stand committed against the relief 

16 



and the justice which it must have. The 
Democratic Party and its candidate, (he 
adds), have openly and courageously made 
labor's demands their own. Mr. Bryan, 
the candidate of the Democratic 1 Party, (he 
says), has fully endorsed labor's ^demands." 

This constitutes a challenge to every 
loyal Republican to investigate the grounds 
of these assertions and, as organized labor 
is not partisan, to see to it that no Repub- 
lican workman is lost to the party if these 
claims are unfounded or based upon demands 
that are mistaken or untenable. 

In this same issue of the Federationist 
Mr. Gompers concedes the "absolute right 
of every citizen to cast his vote for any 
candidate and with any party that he 
pleases" and invites a calm and dispas- 
sionate consideration of the justice of his 
position, and that is what I shall now 
undertake. 

17 



The just demands of labor to which 
Mr. Gompers refers and which he claims 
Mr. Bryan and the Democratic Party have 
fully endorsed are embodied in the Wil- 
son Bill H.R. 20,584 and the Pearre Bill 

H.R. 94. 

I cannot afford to be mistaken in my 
statement that Mr. Gompers refers to these 
specific bills as the measures which contain 
labor's demands for what I am about to 
say rests upon its accuracy. I therefore 
quote Mr. Gompers again. 

Speaking of Mr. Taft, he says in the 
Federationist for October: "He has never 
in any public utterance intimated that he 
would favor the enactment of labor's 
measure, Pearre Bill H.R. No. 94 to limit 
and define the injunction power." 

That the Wilson Bill was the other 
measure appears from quotations from Mr. 
Gompers later on. 

18 



If I can demonstrate to you that one of 
these demands is founded upon a mistake 
of Mr. Gompers' and that no such griev- 
ance as he imagines exists, and that the 
other demand is founded upon an impos- 
sible proposition antagonizing the principle 
for which labor has been contending for 
centuries, I will feel justified in asking 
union labor to form its own judgment as 
to its own duty in deciding between the 
two parties. 

The Wilson Bill, the one which I say 
is founded upon a mistake provides for an 
amendment of the Sherman law exempting 
labor unions and agricultural associations 
from its operation. 

The plank Mr. Gompers proposed to the 
Democratic Convention upon this subject and 
which it did not adopt is in these words :— 

"We therefore pledge the Democratic 
Party to the enactment of a law by Con- 

19 



gress guaranteeing to the wage-earners, 
agriculturalists, and horticulturalists of our 
country, the right of organized effort to the 
end that such associations or their mem- 
bers shall not be regarded as illegal com- 
binations in restraint of trade." 

This demand upon the Democratic 
Party was made, because, as Mr. Gompers 
says in the Federationist for August, from 
which I have quoted it, that 

"The decision of the Supreme Court 
in the Danbury Hatters' case declared 
the labor organizations trusts, when as a 
matter of fact labor organizations are vol- 
untary in character and formed for the 
purpose of protecting and advancing per- 
sonal rights." 

Turning to the Democratic platform 
let us see if the Democratic Party made 
this demand its own and whether it 

20 



pledged itself to the enactment of any 
such guarantee. 

I now quote the Democratic platform 
upon this subject and ask you to carefully 
note its terms. This is what it says and 
all that it says relative thereto: — 

"The expanding organization of industry 
makes it essential that there should be no 
abridgement of the right of wage-earners 
and producers to organize for the protection 
of wages and the improvement of labor 
conditions to the end that such labor 
organizations and their members should not 
be regarded as illegal combinations in 
restraint of trade." 

If there is a word in this plank guar- 
anteeing the passage of a law to the effect 
that labor organizations shall not be regarded 
as illegal combinations in restraint of trade, 
I fail to find it but I do not fail to find 

21 



written in the plainest terms upon the 
forefront of this plank a purpose to mislead 
organized labor and by a protest against 
an abridgement of the right to organize 
to seemingly confirm the mistaken opinion 
of Mr. Gompers that such right has been 
abridged by the decision of the Supreme 
Court in the Danbury Hatters' case. 

This leaves the two parties so far as 
their platforms are concerned in exactly 
the same position. Neither of them has 
guaranteed to pass the Wilson Bill or any 
bill of a similar character. 

There was no necessity for such a 
guarantee in the Republican platform and 
no necessity for the subterfuge in the 
Democratic platform which Mr. Gompers 
incorrectly interprets as a guarantee, for I 
say to you, and I can demonstrate my 
statement, that the Court did not decide 
in the Danbury Hatters' case or in any 

22 



other case that labor unions were con- 
trary to the Sherman or any other law, 
and unless the Court completely reverses 
the principles of law it has announced in 
a hundred cases, it never will make any 
such decision. Such a claim was not 
made in that case and it would have 
been ridiculed if it had been made. 
These facts were well known to the 
shrewd legal gentlemen who framed the 
plank in the Democratic platform I have 
read, protesting against what they knew 
had not happened and could not happen. 
The Congress of the United States 
and the Supreme Court of the United 
States have nothing to do with labor 
unions. As Congress can neither declare 
them valid nor invalid their validity or 
invalidity are not subjects for the Supreme 
Court to pass upon. Labor organizations 
are the creatures of the several States. 

23 



They come into being by the will of the 
people of the States and exist for the 
purposes the people allow. They become 
distinct legal beings with all the responsi- 
bility to the laws of the nation that rests 
upon an individual. When Congress passed 
a law making it unlawful to restrain inter- 
state trade that law is just as binding on 
a corporation as it is on a person and it 
makes no difference for what purpose that 
corporation was formed whether it be a 
church, a printing company, a factory, a 
railroad or a foundry it can not do the 
specific thing prohibited, and certainly a 
decision saying that it cannot do so can 
not be construed as invalidating the charter 
of the corporation or association for the 
purposes for which it was legally formed. 
I have before me the Constitution of 
the American Federation of Labor of 
which Mr. Gompers is President. It was 



24 



organized for four specific purposes. I 
read them. 

" Section 1 . The object of this Fed- 
eration shall be the encouragement and 
formation of local trade and labor 
unions, and the closer federation of such 
societies through the organization of cen- 
tral trade and labor unions in every 
city, and the further combination of such 
bodies into State, Territorial, or Provincial 
organizations to secure legislation in the 
interest of the working masses. 

"Section 2. The establishment of 
national and international trade unions, based 
upon a strict recognition of the autonomy 
of each trade, and the promotion and 
advancement of such bodies. 

"Section 3. An American federation 
of all national and international trade 
unions, to aid and assist each other; to 

25 



aid and encourage the sale of union-label 
goods, and to secure legislation in the 
interest of the working people, and influ- 
ence public opinion, by peaceful and legal 
methods, in favor of organized labor. 

"Section 4. To aid and encourage 
the labor press of America." 

Is there any man so bold or so ignor- 
ant as to tell you that a decision to the 
effect that it is a violation of the Sherman 
law to conspire to break up a man's inter- 
state business, outlaws the American Fed- 
eration of Labor? Which one of its 
objects discloses a violation of that law? 
Not one of them. So you may go through 
the charters of all the labor organizations 
and fail to discover any purpose expressed 
to violate any law. 

The labor organizations of this country 
are just exactly what Mr. Gompers says 

26 



they are, "voluntary in character and 
formed for the purpose of protecting and 
advancing personal rights," and I may add 
they are just as lawful so far as any Federal 
law or decision is concerned as the railroads, 
the factories or the churches of the land. 

Mr. Gompers in speaking to working- 
men in Philadelphia on October 1 Oth 
spoke of "our enemies the capitalists." 

It is very much to be regretted that a 
leader of labor should indulge in such lan- 
guage or teach such pernicious doctrine. 

In a normal condition of society, capital 
and labor can no more be said to be 
enemies than the head that directs and the 
hand that performs can be said to sustain 
that relation. 

It is such expressions as these that 
encourage the European press to predict 
class divisions and social revolution in 
America. I was amazed while in the 

27 



City of Manchester, England, recently to 
read in a daily paper these startling head- 
lines: "Industrial War in America, labor's 
intense antagonism to capital and the com- 
ing revolution." 

This article represented the attitude of 
American labor towards American capital 
as "furiously and bitterly hostile." It rep- 
resented that the fundamental principle of 
labor politics in the United States was to 
"demand unceasingly but never concede" 
and that the hatred of labor for capital is 
stronger and deeper rooted in America 
than in any other part of the world. The 
article then concluded that "the spirit of 
contentment which characterises the British 
workingman who is earning good wages is 
not appreciated by his American contem- 
porary." The American workman it said 
"is never really content, he is always want- 



ing more." 



28 



This may be the English view and Mr. 
Gompers being an Englishman may have 
absorbed this notion before he came to 
this country and may sincerely believe it 
to be true. 

For my part I think it is unjust and 
untrue. I have had frequent opportunity to 
observe and study not only the conditions 
of American and European labor but the 
effect of the superior American conditions 
upon the temper, attitude and disposition 
of American labor. As is natural and to 
be expected as conditions of labor improve 
in America the American workingman 
becomes broader, fairer, more willing to 
discuss and consider great questions tem- 
perately and with more tolerance for the 
other point of view, and, above all, he 
becomes more attached to the institutions 
of his country which he has done so much 
to establish and defend. 

29 



The right, duty and necessity of labor 
to organize is not and can not be chal- 
lenged. From time immemorial the strong 
have successfully dealt with the weak in 
detail, but it is now perfectly certain that 
especially in America and within the 
period of Republican control of American 
policies, legislation has reflected a sound 
public sentiment that the weak shall deal 
I* a.rid be dealt with en masse. What they 
are able to secure for themselves without 
violence to the rights of others or of the 
public peace, they are permitted to seek 
unmolested ; and where the just demands 
of labor are beyond their own attainment 
and within the scope of legislative power, 
measures for their safety, comfort, moral 
and mental uplifting should be promptly 
enacted into law. 

I think American labor recognizes and 
appreciates the tremendous advances it has 

30 



achieved during the past fifty years under 
Republican administration of the National 
and State governments. 

The right of labor to organize is now 
fully recognized in the policy and law of 
the United States and in the policy and 
law of the several States. 

A man may now work when he 
pleases, for whom he pleases, and for what 
he pleases. He may lawfully refuse for 
any reason to continue his labor, whether 
the reason be one based upon his own 
grievance or be predicated upon some rule 
of an association. He may do anything 
he chooses by himself or in conjunction 
with his associates to advance the price of 
labor, to restrict its hours, to prevent 
others from working for his employer or 
to prevent others from being employed ; 
provided he does not use force, threat or 
menace of harm to persons or property, 

31 



without being subject to prosecution for 
conspiracy. 

This is not a new thought with me 
evolved for the purposes of this campaign. 
It is one I have always entertained and 
acted upon. It is one that actuated me in 
my refusal as Attorney-General to prosecute 
the mine workers' unions as violators of the 
Sherman Act during the great anthracite 
coal strike in Pennsylvania in 1 902. 

The Republican administration of the 
Government accepted this view and has 
consistently adhered to it ever since. It is 
the view entertained by Mr. Taft, and his 
judicial and administrative acts fully dis- 
close it. 

Now, my friends, if the Sherman law 
does not declare labor organization unlaw- 
ful and the court has not so decided, 
and if the Republican administration holds 
that they are not condemned by that 

32 



statute, am I not right in contending 
that Mr. Gompers* complaint to the 
contrary is a mistake, and does his mis- 
take justify any Republican workman in 
deserting his party, or justify him in 
denouncing the Republican Party because 
it will not commit itself to an impossible 
suggestion ? 

I say to you there is no necessity to 
pass the Wilson Bill, it would be folly; 
and I say to you further, that the Demo- 
cratic Party has not pledged itself to pass 
such a bill. 

I do not believe any considerable num- 
ber of American workingmen want the 
privilege to use force, threat or menace of 
harm to persons or property and it is not 
credible that there is any general sentiment 
among workmen demanding that all busi^ 
ness and occupations within the length and 
breadth of this land shall be outlawed 

33 



and denied the protection of courts of 
equity — the only courts to grant adequate 
protection in cases where the right to 
carry on business is interfered with by 
force and violence. 

This brings me to the second demand 
made in the name of organized labor by 
Mr. Gompers, it is embodied in the Pearre 
Bill, the one which he says Mr. Bryan 
has made his own and the one which I 
have said antagonizes labor's contention for 
centuries for equal rights of all before the 
law. This bill provides that in labor dis- 
putes no injunction shall issue except to 
protect property, but that the right to carry 
on business of any particular kind, or at any 
particular place, or at all, shall not be held 
to be a property right. It likewise legal- 
izes the blacklist and secondary boycott. 

It is easy to understand how one for- 
mulating such a demand would make an 

34 



appeal to labor upon the basis that capital 
is labor's enemy and, upon this false 
theory, how he would be willing, in order 
to close the courts of justice against every 
business man in America, to sacrifice labor 
by trading the benefits of the Republican 
Party's liberal policies towards labor for a 
law to distinguish between citizens in their 
rights to justice and the protection of the 
law. 

I believe the effect of what Mr. Gom- 
pers proposes and the substance of what 
he asks American workmen to do is this: 
Vote for Bryan and he will destroy the 
protective tariff, which secures to American 
workmen the fair wages and fair conditions 
they need, and as a substitute for good 
wages and conditions Mr. Bryan will 
advocate the enactment of a measure out- 
lawing American business, a thing no 
honest American workman wants. This 

35 



demand is one which Mr. Gompers says 
Mr. Bryan has made his own. Is this 
true, Mr. Bryan? The people are entitled 
to have yes or no. 

In the particular matter of injunctions 
in labor cases I do not pretend to claim 
that unjust injunctions have never been 
issued; it is just as certain that there have 
been, as that unjust judgments have been 
rendered in every other class of cases. 

I would be unmindful of my own rela- 
tion to an effective appeal made to Presi- 
dent Roosevelt to exercise the high pre- 
rogative of pardon to reverse the action of 
a Federal court in punishing some miners 
for the violation of an injunction of a 
court if I were to make such a claim for 
judicial infallibility; and here, before stat- 
ing the particulars of that case, let me call 
your attention to the fact that if the griev- 
ance is that men are subjected to unusual 

36 



and excessive punishment for violating 
drastic injunctions there is always an appeal 
to the President of the United States, who 
has ample and complete power to instantly 
undo the wrong, if a wrong has been 
committed. 

The case to which I refer is the one 
of Weber and Haddow, who were ad- 
judged guilty of contempt of the United 
States Court for the Western District of 
Virginia and were sentenced to jail for six 
months and one month respectively. These 
men filed a petition for pardon, which was 
transmitted to me as Attorney-General for 
investigation and report. 

In making my report to the President, 
recommending a pardon, I expressed an 
unwillingness to agree with the Court, 
that the ultimate purpose of the United 
Mine Workers' Union was not legal. I 
thought that the Court was mistaken in 

37 



that view and I felt that the difficulties at 
the mine were aggravated by the arbitrary 
discharge of union workmen. The pardon 
was granted. 

It by no means follows that because 
the executive branch of the Government 
considered that the writ of injunction in 
that case had been unwisely issued and 
too severely enforced, that the courts all 
over this Union should be deprived of the 
power to prevent a restriction of wrongful 
acts and to preserve the status of persons 
and things pending litigation; or that the 
right of tens of thousands of people 
engaged in various occupations throughout 
this land to resort to the courts to prevent 
unlawful interference with their right to 
carry on their business should be taken 
away. 

One would imagine from the hue and 
cry that has been raised in some quarters 

38 



against the writ of injunction that its prin- 
cipal office was to restrain workingmen 
from exercising their rights. This is wholly 
untrue. An examination of the cases will 
disclose that courts of equity have issued 
injunctions in aid of workingmen's rights 
more frequently than it has been invoked 
against them and such examination will 
also disclose that in a great majority of 
cases where it has been invoked against 
labor it has been refused. Besides, this 
writ is resorted to annually in hundreds of 
cases where labor is not involved to one 
where it is. 

A distinguished lawyer in the city of 
New York informs me that during the 
past two years, he has appeared in forty 
or fifty injunction cases, in all of which 
except three cases, he has appeared for 
trades unions asking for injunctions to 
protect them in their rights. 

39 



He cites the cases of the Bakery and 
Confectioners Workman's International 
Union of America, who obtained injunc- 
tions to protect their union label, another 
one in which an employer was cited for 
contempt of court and only escaped a fine 
or imprisonment by making a satisfactory 
settlement with the union. 

Another case in which he was success- 
ful was one in which he prevented an 
injunction at the instance of an employer 
to restrain a labor union from holding 
meetings and denouncing his methods of 
doing business and denouncing him as an 
employer of non-union labor. In this case 
the injunction was refused and the costs 
put upon the employer. He also cites 
cases in which attempts were made to 
punish employees for contempt and failed. 

There are many other cases to which 
he might have referred, notably, the Arthur 

40 



case where the United States Court re- 
fused to enjoin employees from quitting 
work on the allegation that such secession 
of work would cripple the employer's busi- 
ness, and many others which time will not 
permit me to enumerate. 

But Mr. Bryan contends that even 
where injunctions are properly granted, 
that persons disregarding them should 
not be punished for contempt of court 
without a trial by jury. It does not 
require either a lawyer or a philosopher 
to recognize the absurdity of this sug- 
gestion as it is proposed. It would 
absolutely substitute a jury of twelve 
men in place of the chancellor in every 
injunction case. 

The writ of injunction would be waste 
paper if it could not be enforced by pun- 
ishing those who disobey it. If they could 
not be punished without the sanction of a 

41 



jury, of course nothing but that sanction 
would give it vitality. 

In 1902, as Attorney-General , I 
obtained an injunction against seven of the 
great railway systems in the Middle West, 
upon which every section of the country 
was dependent for the movement of bread 
stuffs and enjoined them from carrying out 
unlawful agreements to transport the ship- 
ments of a few favored grain buyers at 
rates less than were charged to smaller 
dealers and the general public ; the effect 
of which agreements was to drive all 
others from the field of competition and 
to create a monopoly. 

If Mr. Bryan's proposed method of 
dealing with contempts had then been a 
law, these monopolists could have con- 
tinued their nefarious practices until a jury 
had passed upon the propriety of the 
injunction and determined whether or not, 

42 



in their judgment, punishment should follow 
its disobedience. 

Delay would have been certain and 
the result problematical but as it was, the 
certainty of immediate and drastic punish- 
ment broke up this odious condition and the 
grain warehouses and storage elevators, 
which had been built at great expense 
throughout the Middle West to meet the 
demands of an important market and 
which had been deprived of their business 
by the methods I have mentioned, entailing 
loss of employment to thousands of labor- 
ers, immediately resumed operations and 
normal conditions of trade were restored. 

I might also cite the injunctions against 
the beef trust, punishment for the violation 
of which was only prevented by the courts 
holding that immunity had been granted. 
Also the injunction against the Northern 
Securities Company, obedience to which 

43 



might with chances of safety have been 
postponed if the question of punishment 
for its violation had been referred to the 
tardiness and uncertainty of a jury trial. 

And so you may run through the 
thousands of equity cases that are decided 
in this country every year. All these 
decisions must depend for their force and 
effect upon the right of the court to 
enforce its decrees and the proposition to 
make the decisions depend upon the ver- 
dict of a jury is the height of human folly. 

The writ of injunction performs a 
somewhat similar office in respect to the 
protection of property as the great writ of 
habeas corpus performs in the protection of 
personal liberty. 

If you are unjustly deprived of your 
liberty upon an inadequate charge, you do 
not have to wait for a remedy until your 
case is called for trial, after you have lan- 



44 



guished six months in jail or been six 
months under bail as a criminal; you can 
instantly apply to the nearest Judge in his 
home, on the street, in his chambers or 
upon the bench, for a writ of habeas corpus, 
which means an order that your jailer shall 
instantly produce you before the Judge in 
order that he may inquire into the legality 
of your commitment. 

This great writ is the remedy which 
the law gives for the enforcement of the 
right of personal liberty. Of equal con- 
sequence and value to society is the writ 
of injunction, which is used to prevent 
threatened injury, to restore violated posses- 
sions and to secure the permanent enjoy- 
ment of the rights of property. Men will 
defend themselves against injury to their 
persons and their possessions. Civilization 
has substituted the arbitrament of the 
courts for the bludgeon of barbarism. To 

45 



close the courts for the protection of men s 
rights means to drive them back to the 
brutal methods of the past. 

The Pearre Bill says the right to carry 
on business at any time, at any place, or 
at all, shall not be considered a right of 
property, although the fruits of business, 
meaning thereby physical wealth, should 
enjoy its full legal privileges. How 
unmindful this is of the true relations of 
labor and property to the welfare of the 
State. Conducting a business, which gives 
employment, where idleness with all its 
temptations would otherwise prevail, cer- 
tainly is of more economic value to society 
than the mere products or results of business. 

Mr. Gompers asks organized labor to 
reject Mr. Taft because "he has never in 
any public utterance intimated that he 
would favor the enactment of the Pearre 
Bill." Has Mr. Bryan given any such 

46 



public intimation? Mr. Gompers says Mr. 
Bryan and the Democratic Party have 
made this measure their own. The Demo- 
cratic Party has not said so. Does Mr. 
Bryan say so ? Why should not Mr. 
Gompers insist upon a public utterance 
from Mr. Bryan to that effect, seeing 
that he condemns Mr. Taft for failing to 
make one ? Labor is entitled to know if 
Mr. Bryan has given Mr. Gompers any such 
assurance and, if he has, it is a thing the 
public are entitled to know. Mr. Bryan 
has or he has not done this thing. If he 
has not, labor is being deceived by Mr. 
Gompers' representations. If he has, every 
business and working man in America 
owes it to himself to consider what it 
means to advocate the exclusion of Amer- 
ican industry from access to the courts of 
justice and to legalize the blacklist and 
secondary boycott. 

47 



Ten days ago in a public address in 
Philadelphia I called Mr. Bryan's atten- 
tion to the fact that Mr. Gompers was 
representing to organized labor that he, 
Mr. Bryan, favored the Pearre Bill and 
that Mr. Gompers was asking labor to 
support Mr. Bryan on that account. 

I respectfully asked Mr. Bryan to say 
whether this was true; to let the people 
know whether Mr. Gompers was deceiving 
labor and whether he, Mr. Bryan, was 
willing to remain silent and receive the 
benefit of such possible deception or would 
manfully acknowledge his allegiance to the 
doctrine that a business man should not 
be permitted to go into court to protect 
his business against violence, so that the 
people might vote with a full knowledge 
of his position. Mr. Bryan has not replied. 

Two days later, the President in a 
letter to me which has been made public, 

48 



repeated this question in a manner so 
direct that a failure to say yes or no is 
bound to be accepted as indicating Mr. 
Bryan's intention to leave the matter where 
it is, so that he can get benefits both 
ways, namely, on the theory that he is 
and also that he is not committed to the 
Pearre Bill. Still Mr. Bryan makes no 
reply. 

It is true that day by day Mr. Bryan 
and Mr. Gompers indulge in ill-natured 
and irrelevant attacks upon the President 
and me, but what have they said about 
Mr. Bryan advocating outlawing the right 
to do business and legalizing the blacklist 
and the secondary boycott ? Nothing ! 
The President and I are not asking for 
the votes of the people and therefore I 
refuse to follow Mr. Bryan and Mr. 
Gompers into the realm of untruthful and 
irrelevant assertion. As I was never 

49 



attorney for the steel trust or the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad and never exchanged a 
syllable with Mr. Frick on the subject of 
the legislation to which Mr, Bryan has 
referred, I will simply revert to the ques- 
tion in which the people are now inter- 
ested, and that is, did you, Mr. Bryan, 
promise Mr. Gompers to support the 
Pearre Bill? 

The people are not now engaged in 
child's play. They are about to perform 
a solemn duty. They will insist upon 
being dealt with openly and fairly. They 
are entitled to know how the ship of 
state is to be steered and whether or not 
there are any secret or concealed purposes 
to deviate from the publicly announced 
course. 

The most profound political maxim 
evolved by the most remarkable assem- 
blage of men gathered together by the 

50 



decree of destiny for the betterment of 
humanity is, that "the liberty of each 
citizen ends where the liberty of another 
citizen begins." This is said to adequately 
express all human social law. 

The Pearre Bill favors a return to class 
privilege before the law, the existence of 
which was the underlying cause of the 
revolution which bathed France in blood 
before the rule of equality I have just quo- 
ted was evolved and accepted by the privi- 
leged classes. The restoration of class 
privilege, in any form, in favor of any class 
would destroy the equilibrium of our insti- 
tutions. 

Does Mr. Bryan accept this bill, 
and has he so assured Mr. Gompers? Is 
not that a question you are entitled to 
have answered yes or no? Suppose I am 
mistaken as to the tremendous blow to 
human rights involved in this measure, are 

51 



you not still entitled to know where the 
candidate stands on it, in order that you 
may form your own conclusions? 

Mr. Gompers is in such deadly earnest 
about it that he has denounced Mr. Taft 
to labor because he has not committed 
himself to it publicly. Then why should 
not Mr. Bryan make such commitment? 

I leave this subject with the parting 
observation that Mr. Bryan owes it to the 
whole people, he owes it to labor, he 
owes it to Mr. Gompers, who says he 
knows, he owes it to himself to say: yes, 
I have, or, no, I have not, made the Pearre 
Bill my own. 

I would hardly be justified in closing 
my remarks without adverting to the 
so-called paramount issue of this cam- 
paign. 

Mr. Bryan says the paramount issue is 
this: "Shall the people rule." Let us see 

52 



if there is any place in this country where 
they do not rule. You do not need to 
make a deep investigation as it is a matter 
of common knowledge that in the States to 
which Mr. Bryan looks for his main sup- 
port, a majority of the citizens are denied 
their constitutional right to vote. These 
people certainly do not rule. 

If Mr. Bryan is sincere in his desire 
that the people shall rule or feel that 
they do not at the present time, why 
does he not strike at the most promi- 
nent and vicious violation of their right to 
rule? 

It is not the fault of these people who 
are unlawfully disfranchised nor is it the 
fault of the Republican Party, which be- 
lieves that every man is entitled to and 
should exercise rights given to him by the 
Constitution of the United States, but the 
fault lies with the Democratic Party of 

53 



which Mr. Bryan is now standing as the 
champion. 

The only part of the country that I 
know of where the people do not rule is 
in that section which the Democratic Party 
loves to characterize as the solid South and 
where this supposed prominent issue is not 
a fanciful figure of speech but a disgrace 
to our country and to civilization. 

Not only are the colored citizens of 
these Democratic States disfranchised, but 
the percentage of white voters who do 
not cast a ballot and take no part in 
ruling their country is astounding in this, 
the Twentieth Century. 

The effect upon the whole country 
of this wholesale disfranchisement in these 
States is perfectly obvious. Their Repre- 
sentatives in Congress, who pass laws affect- 
ing the whole country, only represent a 
small portion of the citizens of their own 

54 



States, while a Representative from this 
State represents ten times the number of 
people. 

This is one of the evils of the people 
not ruling to which Mr. Bryan gives no 
attention at all. 

Only a very small percentage of the 
Democratic Senators and Representatives 
represent a constituency where national 
policies have been considered. In many 
districts the Republicans have no candi- 
date. Mr. Tremain called attention to 
this in 1 904. He said : — 

"In the States called surely Demo- 
cratic, elections only register somebody's 
selection as to what persons shall have the 
offices. Never before in the history of the 
country has individual choice exclusively 
governed, as it does in those States, the 
selection of platforms and of candidates, 

55 



regardless of public measures and of party 
tendencies. 

"In nine out of those surely Democratic 
States so complete is the repression of any 
consideration by the electorate of the poli- 
tical questions that agitate the country that 
there is not a single Representative chosen 
upon any such issue; while in the remain- 
ing four of those thirteen States, in only 
limited localities is there a constituency that 
dares to express itself at the polls." 

We would have a little more confidence 
in the sincerity of the anguish of Mr. 
Bryan about the people's right to rule if 
he would turn his attention to the only 
States whose electoral votes he received in 
his previous campaigns or which he is 
likely to receive in this one. He need 
not bother about the States whose votes 
swell the great Republican majority. The 

56 



people rule here and their free access to 
the polls is not interfered with but encour- 
aged. 

It has been said of us that "it is 
curious that in a country which boasts of 
its intelligence that the theory should be 
so generally held that government, the 
most complicated of human contrivances, 
and one which every day becomes more 
complicated, can be worked at sight by 
any man able to talk for an hour or two 
without stopping to think." This, I think 
is a superficial view. I believe the Ameri- 
can people fully appreciate the increasing 
complexities of their government and 
keenly discriminate between men who 
understand and do things and those who 
merely talk about them. 

Mr. Taft entertains no impossible 
theories of government, as Mr. Bryan does, 
to which the people's interests must 

57 



be bent and fitted, else shattered and 
destroyed. He will be better satisfied to 
achieve his policies than to vociferously 
proclaim them. His policies are not like 
those of Mr. Bryan, a matter of geography. 
He is not endeavoring to conceal in one 
section of the country what he is proclaim- 
ing in another. He does not try to be all 
things to all men. He is just a straight- 
forward, capable, stable and experienced 
statesman, the type that we love to point 
to as America's best product and the man 
the people will choose next Tuesday for 
President of the United States. 



58 



mM 




*•* /., 



